Objective: The East London Parkinson Disease (ELPD) project is a platform study aiming to understand the manifestations and determinants of Parkinson’s disease in a diverse population. The present work updates previous findings from the ELPD study.

Background: Parkinson’s Disease (PD) research continues to focus disproportionately on White, well-educated, affluent patients[1]. Despite this, the fastest growing burden of disease appears to be found in middle-low income countries[2].

Method: People with Parkinson’s disease (PwP) from the Royal London Hospital were recruited to the ELPD project. This is a case-control study which captures the clinical phenotype, genotype and biomarker characteristics of PwP. Data on demographics, motor and non-motor symptoms, and biospecimens have been collected.

Results: 219 PwP and 114 healthy controls (HC) were recruited to the ELPD project, with a high degree of representation from South Asian participants (patients, 39%, and controls, 69.9%), and Black (patients 11.6%, controls 2.2%). In both PwP and HC, males represented 62% of participants. Worse motor and non-motor scores were found in PwP from diverse backgrounds compared to White PwP. Mean UPDRS part 3 was 42.2±18.9 in South Asian PwP, 47±17 in Black PwP, both of which were significantly higher than in White PwP, 35.2±16.5 (p=0.013, and p=0.002 respectively). Cognitive testing identified more than 73.5% of diverse PwP as having cognitive impairment by using MoCA, compared to 45% of White PwP (p=0.001).

Conclusion: Our study suggests patients from diverse backgrounds may have worse motor phenotypes. Although apparently more cognitive impairment is seen in South Asian and Black PwP, the MoCA has been shown to suffer from linguistic and cultural biases. Therefore, more culturally fair testing is urgently needed to understand the extent of cognitive impairment in diverse populations.

References: 1. Bandres-Ciga, S. et al. NeuroBooster Array: A Genome-Wide Genotyping Platform to Study Neurological Disorders Across Diverse Populations. medRxiv (2023) doi:10.1101/2023.11.06.23298176.
2. GBD 2016 Parkinson’s Disease Collaborators. Global, regional, and national burden of Parkinson’s disease, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet Neurol. 17, 939–953 (2018).

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-east-london-parkinson-disease-project-updated-results-from-engaging-a-diverse-population-in-research/